


Curse of Truth

by V6ilill



Category: Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Biased Narrator, Disappointment, Disillusionment, Gen, Horror, Kinda, Lies, One Shot, Origin Story, Parent-Child Relationship, Visions, Visions in dreams, Writers, Writing, hero to villain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-31
Updated: 2020-12-31
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:20:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28451529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/V6ilill/pseuds/V6ilill
Summary: Once upon a time, in a hovel upon the hill lived a mother, a father and their blessed daughter. Blessed with the gift of foresight, the gift of truth, the parents said, and gave their daughter paper to write upon.
Relationships: Original Character & Original Character
Kudos: 2





	Curse of Truth

In the hovel upon the hill there is a light and a girl writing. The words come as easy as breath to her, for she is blessed, her parents say. Blessed with the gift of truth, they say, and buy her paper from their measly wages.

When she sleeps, she sees terrible things. She cries and wakes, but the horrors beyond wish to gain form. They wish for her to write them.

“Think positively,” says her mother as she guides the girl to her tiny desk “Think of how you can make these things never happen through your words.”

“Exactly,” her father nods, calculating which magazine would pay the most for glorious praise pieces and cautionary tales “Your Emperor-given gift will guide many to the right path.”

The girl sighs and puts ink to paper.

She sees an overgrown child given an engine she didn’t understand and a prayer book she couldn’t read - and when she failed, her masters threw her into the darkness to rot.  
The girl writes of supplication before rightful authority.

She sees a mother love her son - love him more than the moon or the sun - and give him all she had, until it was not enough. Then the mother took too much, took too greedily and her line was gone from this world.  
The girl writes of how parents can make a better future for their children.

She sees a family who were all alike treat the same path through the centuries, sacrificing their sons and bidding their daughters to rule, swiping children off the streets to hold their fading power - united they stood and united they were consigned to ruin, down to the littlest children who all knew and though it right.  
The girl writes of the importance of teamwork.

She sees a girl who chased the stars and her brother who could have them - but no matter how fast she ran, she could never catch him.  
The girl writes of how anyone can rise to the top.

She sees a woman with a black handprint on her cheek sit besides a locked box of schematics that had no key and beat her hands against the lock until her fingers turned into long black stains, until her hands painted stripes, until she had nought but elbows - and all she could do was stare at box of her hopes and dreams right in front of her.  
The girl writes of how hard work can make anything possible.

She sees a little letter crossed with three lines and many murderers arguing over methods - arguing until they were all gone, and millions more with them.  
The girl writes of how the cunning heretic divides and conquers.

She sees armored giants turn their weapons upon those they were meant to protect - mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, all bleached-white skulls in emptied streets.  
The girl writes of all the stalwart defenders of mankind.

She sees a man who sought to build a better, fairer world - and his student who spits on his grave and drinks sugared recaf out of his skull.  
The girl writes of how important it is to set a good example for future generations.

She sees the remains of a man try endlessly to fix the garbage of eras past, having forgotten everything else, stringing himself together with screws and wires.  
The girl writes of the importance of tradition.

When her mother takes her to town, takes her works to the Patriot’s Digest, she sees him. The remnant of a person is right there, reading silently from a dataslate - and all his clamps and screws and wires are right there. His left eye was rotting in its socket and he paid no mind to the people who bumped into him - the slate was his whole world. All as the girl has seen.

The girl sees now, sees the greatest truth of all - those were not cautionary tales of the future she had been given to avert, but things that had already come to pass - tragedies begging someone to see what had really happened. Her gift is a curse - the curse of truth.

That night she burned all of her false writings, all those twisted embellishments of real people and their stories, all the wretched manglings of the truth. And then she burned her mother and father, for she had told them what she saw and all they wanted was for her to spin it into little fairytales they could sell to the propaganda machine, butcher reality to protect the masses from it. They screamed, but she had heard worse. They melted, but she had seen worse. They begged for mercy, but she had seen many better people scream for salvation and get nothing. She packed her quill and parchment and left them to their fates.

In the hovel upon the hill there is a light and a woman writing. She writes the truth she sees, the truth you can see with your own two eyes - tear away the comforting veil of illusions, and you can see. She writes of places she will never visit, but where she has been to many times. She writes of people she has never met, but who she knows better than they know themselves.

In the hovel upon the hill, the front door is ajar. Come, ask the woman writing - she will tell you the truth of your world. There’s no need to be afraid, no need to shy away from things over and done.

Or is it the truth you fear?


End file.
